Tuesday, April 25, 2017

A MILLION BRITISH MEN ARE DESCENDANTS OF THE ROMANS

A
million British men may be directly descended from the Roman legions
which came, saw and conquered England and Wales almost two thousand
years ago, a DNA study suggests.

The Romans departed abruptly in
the early 5th Century AD, leaving behind relics of their rule including
Hadrian's Wall along with a host of towns, roads and encampments.The painting above is entitled "The Last Roman Leaves Britain" by John Everett Millais.

But, according to a report in THE TELEGRAPH,
perhaps the most enduring sign of their legacy is in British genes,
with an estimated million British men descending from the invading
forces.

A genetic study of 5,000 people found that up to four
million men in England and Wales carry distinctive genetic signatures
which are most commonly found, and likely have their origin, in Italy,
the newspaper report said.

Although it is impossible to prove
whether any individual person's genes were introduced during the Roman
occupation of Britain, and not before or after, researchers estimate
that the influx of tens of thousands soldiers was responsible for at
least a quarter of the total.

Following their arrival in 43 AD
Romans are thought to have accounted for between four and eight per cent
of all men in Britain – a much greater proportion than at any other
point in history.

The DNA markers are much rarer in Ireland,
where there was no Roman invasion, and Scotland where the armies'
presence was limited to a brief occupation of some southern regions.

Researchers
examined DNA from the Y chromosome, which is only passed on by men, and
identified five rare patterns which are unusually common among English,
Welsh and particularly Italian men.

The figures only represent men whose Roman descent has been passed down from father
to son, so the true total must be even higher, the newspaper report
added.